Autumn landscapes in Romania

[Ayesha Erotica 1,963]

On 10/28/2023 at 7:23 PM, FfFfFfFF said:

 in the early days of the war Russia occupied Snake Island and I thought it was a matter of time until they reach Transnistria and Moldova.

That's what I've been thinking, too. They quickly managed to take over Kherson city and rapidly controlled Kherson oblast and were heading westwards... and then they gave up Kherson city and ever since then, the Dnipro river is the de facto border and Moldova isn't under immediate danger anymore, though it may be at a more distant point in future. I was wondering: will they stop at Tranisnistria, or will Russia take Moldova proper, too and what if Moldova united before to avoid being attacked or would Romania be scared and not accept Moldova that is about to be attacked?

Indeed, the US want the war to last as long as possible to weaken Russia - the US uses Ukraine as cannon fodder, they absolutely do not care about Ukraine in a positive way. Ukraine only matters to US if they can use it to make Russia weaker, otherwise Ukraine doesn't exist for USA. Also the US pressured and forced Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons in the 1990s - so that Russia can attack it afterwards.

The EU is often dysfunctional and its various member states have different interests that often cannot be reconciled. Currently, nine states support Qualified Majority Voting=QMV, including all populous states (except Poland). I think that QMV is dangerous because it practically turns the EU into a Germany-France empire. GER-FRA and about two other states could then block everything single-handedly because they would have a reverse veto and everything that happens could practically not be enforced without GER-FRA and a few others. It is not without reason that most low-population states are somewhat or completely opposed to QMV: they would then have virtually no influence at all.

It would be a bad scenario if Moldova were to unite with Romania and the EU then introduced QMV, then neither Chisinau nor Bucharest would have a final say: that would be a massive loss of sovereignty. But it is not likely that QMV would be implemented on multiple, new levels because "Ironically, although, the nine states fail to conform a qualified majority on their own, as this necessitates 15 member states representing at least 65% of the bloc's total population." So, there is right now no QM for QMV and QMV would need to be voted still under the old system, where each member state has a veto

( https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/05/04/nine-eu-countries-join-forces-to-reform-voting-rules-on-foreign-policy-and-dent-veto-power )

If there were a vote on its introduction, Hungary would also have to agree, and Cyprus, and Malta... and only one would have to veto it to stop QMV. Therefore, I think that Moldova will join the EU as a normal member state under the current rules and Moldova should and will then have a veto right and I think it can then use its veto right, when necessary. Behind the scenes, Germany often blackmails other countries financially and denies them subsidies if they "don't vote the way Germany wants." e.g. Poland, which was punished by withholding EU money.

My personal opinion is: Moldova is and has been a long time dysfunctional because of Transnistria - a problem it couldn't solve for 3 decades by now; dysfunctional because of different visions between the pro-Russian and pro-West camps that are diametrical; dysfunctional because of corruption, etc. And this is why Moldova perfectly suits the EU because the EU is also dysfunctional and the EU couldn't either solve major world conflicts. Moldova belongs to the EU because it mirrors its dysfunctionality, and Moldova can help the EU to become more dysfunctional.

[FfFfFfFF 58,760]

5 hours ago, LoliLux said:

 

Further, I would say Russia's war effort started to deterioate once they failed to occupy Odesa - it was all downhill from that point until it stabilized to the stalemate that is in place since autumn 2022. I have no dobut the offensive direction was: Kherson -> Mykolaiv -> Odesa -> Ismail/Tiraspol -> Chișinău, if Russia had the means to occupy the Republic of Moldova, it would have done it no doubt, the question is: would it have had the military power/capacity to do it? Russia is explicit about its goals to reach Budjak/ mouth of the Danube which is still stretegically important and this is very much an issue.

I think Transnistria could prove to be more flexibile than it may seem now, as I said Transnistria is basically a glorified money laundering scheme instead of a real seccesionist movement like, say, the Republic of Artsak is (was). If the local oligarcs come to the realization that they would profit more from being part of ''Romanian world'' than of ''Russkiy Mir'', they would allign their decisions with this goal, this is why many of them have Romanian citizenship already (not publicly obviously as Russia criticizes the fact that Maia Sandu has Romanian citizenship and would be too comically hypocritical given Transnistrian Russian-speaking politicals have it too).

Something less know about the Unites' States desires in Eastern Europe is that originally it supported Romanian claims on Northern Bukowina, Hertza and Besssarabia/ Budjak - you can see a Congress Resolution which asked for referendums to take places in these regions here https://www.congress.gov/bill/102nd-congress/senate-resolution/148/text. This happened while Ukraine was still a Russian puppet (1991), once Russian influence started to dissipate in Ukraine, the Americans suddenly started to support the Ukrainian cause, because so American influence can be pushed to the borderlands of Russia and why settle for less? The Unites States are a useful counter height to Russia in this part of Europe but they do suffer from greed and maximalist ambitions.

[Ayesha Erotica 1,963]

18 hours ago, FfFfFfFF said:

Something less know about the Unites' States desires in Eastern Europe is that originally it supported Romanian claims on Northern Bukowina, Hertza and Besssarabia/ Budjak.

 

I think that Romanian-speaking Europe and the Soviet Union were both among the big winners of the territorial changes of the 20th century. Romania gained Transylvania, Crișana, Maramureș and Banat. Transylvania alone is very large compared to previous Romania and Transylvania is now part of Romania's essential identity. Certainly Wallachia and Old Moldavia are the most important culturally within Romania, but the rest of the world is interested in Dracula and therefore Transylvania comes first. The biggest losers are German-speaking Europe and Hungarian-speaking Europe. They lost a lot and are now only limited to a core territory. The Hungarian-speaking communities outside Hungary are in decline, are small, and scattered, and ultimately they are only a minority and have to beg and whine for the mercy of the other majority and have no state of their own. This is different than with the Republic of Moldova: there the Romanian-speaking people are in the majority, they have their own state and so the Romanian-speaking culture lives on in Moldova, but the German-speaking and Hungarian-speaking culture has almost completely faded away in Eastern Europe and is just a shadow of its former self. The once large Austrian-Hungarian empire are just two rather small states, and only the populous capital cities (Vienna has 1,9 million inhabitants for a country of just 9 million inhabitants, similair to Hungary; while Poland's capital is less populous than Vienna) remind of the historic imperialism of the capital cities.

By the way, while Poland and France got territories from GER, Holland also wanted to annex territories from GER. They wanted everything northwest to Cologne - but the USA rejected this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_annexation_of_German_territory_after_the_Second_World_War

While China thinks about tomorrow and the future, the US looked at the world from an outdated perspective: they thought Ukraine would be like Russia in miniature and threaten it with nuclear weapons. Personally, I question whether UKR is really looking West... imo, it's just looking towards Germany's subsidies money and therefore to the West. Sometimes I even think, that Germany is the reason of the war. Why? Well, if there wasn't Germany that attracts other countries with its large amount of subsidies mainly in eastern Eutope, then UKR likely would see little sense in joining the EU and then RU wouldn't feel like UKR is leaving its cultural sphere.

About unification with Moldova:

I think that Iasi should become the capital of a unified new Romania, whether this will be an emergency reunification or not. Iasi is very close to the MOL border and would be not on the periphery anymore if MOL joined RO. It would have symbolic message for both MOL and old RO. Furthermore, Iasi historically once served as a capital for Old Moldavia and its glorious past has to be revived. The gap between Bukarest (about 1,8 million) and Cluj-Napoca (about 330,000) is just way too big and Chisinau (about 530,000) is also still big. The gap between Iasi and Bukarest would become smaller if it was the capital and the wider area could benefit from it. I think Moldova should make the first steps and advertise Iasi as a new capital. It won't have much time if Russia suddenly comes. It is unrealistic to make Chisinau the new capital b/c it is too much on the periphery but Moldova could profit from its proximity to Iasi in a unified Romania.

 

 

[FfFfFfFF 58,760]

@LoliLux More can be said about the role of each province in the constitution of Romania. The 3 provinces (Transylvania, Moldova and Wallachia) are really seen as a regional trinity that lies at the root of the Romanian national identity. The interwar period was Romania's historical golden age and an era when Romania was seen as a regional power in the Black Sea Region and South-East Europe. Transylvania has a special place because it was the core region of the Roman province of Dacia, and in this sense is seen as the primordial part of the country from which the Latin identity diffused across the Carpathians to Moldova and Wallachia - Transylvania is in many ways the place where the national awakening began.

After WW1 Romania actually did have more territorial claims (before WW1, a condition for entering the war was that RO receives all lands until the Tisa river and the whole of Banat and Maramureș - in reality the last two provinces were partitioned and Hungary retained more land, Hungary itself proposed to be ruled by the Romanian king at one point wanting to prevent a separation with Transylvania, which Romania refused etc).

I love maps and I think they contribute a lot - this for instance was the ethnic make up which decided Romania's western border in the early 20th century. You can see the border with Hungary, even though it wasn't pushed to the Tisa river, was still very satisfactory for Romanians, very few Romanian villages remained out of it. The borders with Serbia (Banat) and Czechoslovakia (Maramureș) were less satisfactory, although the loss of Bessarabia, northern Bukowina and Hertza after WW2 quickly outshadowed them.

The Germans from Transylvania left almost completely, but to this day Hungarians are a huge minority in Romania and their ethnic party (UDMR) is always in governance - even at the expense even of Romanian parties. There is also an issue of Hungarians claims over Transylvania still which makes the Russia-Hungary alliance lowkey creepy for Romania: Russia always wanted Bessarabia and Hungary always wanted Transylvania and nowadays they're allied so there's that. 

Personally I would love for Iași to be the capital, but unfortunately it's not doable because Bucharest is the seat of all national institutions, it's already one of the regions in Eastern Europe with the highest HDI etc. It would just be too much of an effort to move everything there and another downside is that it's closer to Russia. Unification would help in the sense that more Romanians from western Moldova could go to visit Bessarabia (and in turn help it develop economically and tourism-wise) and for more Moldovans from the Republic to come to places like Iași. You have no idea how the separation affects tourism, and how much time one needs to spend at the border when ideally they should be part of a common space - I also speak from experience.

In an united Romania Chișinău actually would still be a new center of gravity which could attract many Romanians from the left bank of the Prut - by now Chișinău is bigger than Iași, even though Iași was the capital of the Principality of Moldova which merged with the Principality of Wallachia to form Romania. It would suddenly be in fac the second biggest city in Romania and in a way the unified state would benefit from it, as Russia benefits from having Moscow and Sankt Petersburg as its 2 main cities even though Moscow ultimately  became THE capital.